Plenary,

Meeting date: Thursday, May 11, 2006

Official Report 713KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

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Cabinet (Meetings)

It is good to be back in the chamber.

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-2280)

The next Cabinet meeting will discuss among other matters a report on the current position in Fife for the families affected or potentially affected by E coli. The matter is serious and I am sure that every member will want to wish the children well, express concern for the families and ensure that we support the local agencies that have to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as possible.

All our thoughts are with the children and their families in Fife.

I am sure that we all agree that teachers deserved a substantial pay rise when the McCrone agreement was struck back in 2001. Does the First Minister agree that the ultimate objective of any increase in education spending should be to improve the quality of education for children? If so, can he explain why, according to the report that Audit Scotland published this morning, as Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs at the time, he failed to include clear outcome measures defining what the agreement was intended to achieve, which, in Audit Scotland's opinion, made it impossible to assess the overall value for money of the £2 billion spent?

I start by congratulating Ms Sturgeon. There have been 63 First Minister's question times since I became First Minister in November 2001. On none of those 63 occasions has Ms Sturgeon asked me a question about schools and schoolchildren. I am delighted that she has changed that habit and has suddenly discovered her interest in the subject.

I could list many changes and improvements that have been made to Scottish education, in particular in the past five years. Given that Ms Sturgeon has raised the matter, let us go back to the debates on the McCrone agreement that took place at the time. At no time in 2001, 2002 or 2003 did the Scottish National Party say that we were spending too much money on Scottish teachers, as Ms Hyslop implied yesterday. At no time did SNP members say that there needed to be more monitoring and more bureaucracy; in fact, they said exactly the opposite. After a statement on the agreement, Mike Russell said:

"Would it not be better to reduce bureaucracy … on schools and young people of assessment, targeting and the publication of league tables?"—[Official Report, 14 February 2001; Vol 10, c 1201.]

The SNP was consistent in its opposition even to the measures that were contained in the agreement and our policies on measuring outputs and on improvements in Scottish education.

Back then, the agreement was about Scotland's children—as it is today. It does not take an accountant to work out that children will benefit from lower pupil teacher ratios and from teachers spending more time in the classroom teaching them. It does not take a genius to work out that those experiences in schools will be enhanced if teachers are happy and well rewarded. I am absolutely determined now—as I was back then—that we will not go back to the days when industrial relations in Scotland's classrooms were a shambles, when Government was not directly involved and when schoolchildren's education was being affected. As a teacher in the 1980s, I knew the cost of that then, and I know today the value of the improvements that we have brought in, with which we will continue.

There is no doubt that the McCrone agreement has resulted—quite rightly—in better-paid teachers, so it is hardly surprising that it has delivered better industrial relations. According not to me but to the Audit Scotland report that was published this morning, clear evidence that it has also resulted in better-educated children is lacking. I draw the First Minister's attention to the key conclusions of the Audit Scotland report. It states that the agreement contains no clear outcome measures relating to educational attainment and that it is not possible to form any judgment on its overall impact or the value for money achieved. I remind the First Minister that he was the education minister who struck the deal. Does he accept that, when he was agreeing to spend £2 billion of taxpayers' money, he should have paid much more attention to what taxpayers and their children would get in return?

As I said, it did not take a genius to work out that removing the administrative burden on teachers would improve what happened in the classroom and that increasing the number of teachers and improving their promotion structures, professionalism and skills would improve the teaching of children and their results. It did not take a genius to work out that the industrial relations improvements in the classroom and in schools would result in improvements in Scottish education.

The improvements have been dramatic. The percentage of primary school pupils achieving expected attainment levels has increased by 9 percentage points in the years since devolution. Attainment among younger pupils in that age group is particularly encouraging. Almost 90 per cent of pupils in primary 3 now achieve the levels that we expect of them in that year. In the years since devolution, the percentage of secondary 2 pupils achieving expected levels has increased from 41 per cent to 59 per cent. Scotland is recognised not by Audit Scotland but by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education—the experts on education who independently assess our education system—as being in the top three performing countries in the world in every important category.

We know the improvements that we have made. Ms Sturgeon and the SNP may have moved back to the days when another party was in Government and may know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, but we understand the value of good education and are determined to continue with the improvements to which I have referred and to support Scotland's teachers who are in the front line of bringing them about.

In all his ranting and raving, the First Minister has failed to answer one question: why does Audit Scotland say that there is no evidence of better education or value for money? Is it not the case that the report is not a one-off, but just further evidence of the sloppiness at the heart of the Government? Today we hear that £2 billion was spent on education with no evidence of value for money. Two months ago, Audit Scotland reported a fourfold overspend on the consultants contract, with no evidence of the benefits to patients. Is it not the case that the First Minister and the Government are very good at making promises and spending money, but very, very bad at making real improvements in the delivery of public services?

I accept Ms Sturgeon's definition of the Government as very good. I will not quote back to her the statistics that I have just outlined, because there are so many more that I can use. The number of youngsters in Scotland who are achieving the desired level at standard grade is going up. The number of youngsters who are achieving higher level grades in Scotland is going up. The number of teachers in our schools is going up. Class sizes in our schools are coming down. The number of new schools and the number of refurbished schools in Scotland are both going up. As a result of the McCrone agreement, the amount of bureaucracy in which teachers are involved is coming down, allowing them to teach in the classroom as they wanted to do when they chose teaching as a career.

The SNP should read the report, not the newspapers. The report says:

"Good early progress has been made in implementing the Agreement".

It also states that

"The early evidence suggests that good progress is being made,"

and that

"All but one of the milestones set for completion by August 2004 were met".

It was a good agreement that has delivered for Scottish education.

The SNP should accept that, as it did at the time. A parliamentary motion in the name of Brian Adam began:

"That the Parliament notes with concern the shortage of social workers throughout Scotland and considers that the Scottish Executive should initiate a McCrone-type review".

In its manifesto for the 2003 elections, the SNP said:

"An SNP administration will honour the McCrone agreement on teachers' pay and conditions in full"

because that is the way to guarantee

"the period of stability and co-operation that the agreement was meant to achieve."

The SNP should be consistent. It should support Scottish teachers and Scottish education and—most important of all—it should support Scottish schoolchildren and give them the best chance in life.

I confirm to the First Minister that the SNP would honour the McCrone agreement. However, unlike his Government, we would ensure that it was properly implemented.

We have heard a lot in the past couple of weeks about how the First Minister wants to distance himself from Tony Blair. A source close to the First Minister told The Sun:

"Jack is going to spend the next year making himself different".

On today's evidence, I would have thought that making himself competent would be a better ambition.

A poll last month showed that just 28 per cent of Scots backed Jack McConnell as First Minister. Will he accept that it is his Government, and not only Tony Blair's, that people are sick fed up with? Although many of his back benchers want to see the back of Tony Blair, more and more people in Scotland want to see the back of Jack McConnell and his Government.

I hope that my partners in the Liberal Democrats will allow me to say one thing about the Prime Minister. He has won almost as many general elections as Ms Sturgeon has managed to lose constituency elections. He is the most successful leader of my party ever, and her party has been rejected consistently by the voters since 1929. In fact, in just over 20 years' time, the SNP will be celebrating a century of uninterrupted defeat.

What happens in this chamber is important for next year's elections because of the record of this devolved Government and this partnership in Scotland. Waiting times are down and survival rates for cancer, heart disease and stroke are up; class sizes in our schools are down and school results are up; crimes in Scotland are coming down and drug seizures and the use of antisocial behaviour orders are up; unemployment is down and the number of jobs and economic growth are up; the number of graduates leaving the country is down and our population is going up; and the number of children in poverty is down and the number of qualified people helping Scotland to compete in the 21st century is going up.

The things that are down most in Scotland over the past seven years are the number of people who vote for the SNP and the number of members the party has in the chamber. The things that are going up include the number of teachers, the number of doctors, the number of nurses, the number of operations, the number of new schools, and—just in this past month—the number of grannies using our buses, too.

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

I am apprehensive that many eardrums will have been burst and that no one will be able to listen to me.

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues they will discuss. (S2F-2281)

I have no immediate plans to meet the Prime Minister, but I am looking forward to meeting the new Secretary of State for Scotland this afternoon. I congratulate Douglas Alexander on his appointment.

Teachers play a vital role in the development of our children and it would be crude to suggest that they are all undeserving of their current salaries. However, Audit Scotland makes an important point in the report that it has published. It indicates that it is hard to measure what improvement the McCrone deal has made to teaching in Scotland.

Does the First Minister accept the general proposition that, rather than universally condemning teachers because of concerns over the standards in our schools, we should place the blame on the education system that ministers have created?

I have already outlined the improvements in Scottish education that have come about as a result not only of the agreement on teachers' pay and conditions but of the other policies that we have followed over the past seven years. I strongly believe that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Scotland's results and standards are improving all the time. That role is vital for this devolved Government and Parliament, and I am proud that we have managed to fulfil it.

However, I also believe that this issue must be seen in the context of the agreement's objectives, which were to ensure a greater level of teacher professionalism; that teachers dealt with less bureaucracy and administration; that there were more teachers; that they had career progression; and that the promoted posts in schools were streamlined. One indication of the agreement's success is the comment in the Audit Scotland report that all but one of those milestones have been achieved. Indeed, only a few short months ago, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, which measures the quality of education in this country, said in its important annual report that Scottish education is again competing with the best in the world and that its teachers have a high degree of professionalism and its pupils have a high and ever-increasing degree of success. We are proud of—and are determined to improve on—that record.

Members of the teaching profession will struggle to reconcile the First Minister's description of our education system with what many of them have to encounter day after day. He must accept responsibility for the huge additional burden that has been centrally imposed on them. I point out that that is not my rhetoric. Last year, in his newsletter to parents, the then head teacher of James Gillespie's primary school, who I presume is an expert, said that the poor value for money and the disappointing levels of achievement that we get from our system are a result of all the shackles, initiatives and bureaucracy that surround the delivery of education in Scotland. However much it might suit the First Minister to make teachers the scapegoats for current difficulties, is not the real culprit the flawed structure of the education system over which he presides?

I do not accept Annabel Goldie's premise that our education system is going downhill. When I taught in the system in the 1980s, I saw the disruption that took place and how a whole generation of Scottish youngsters was affected by the then Conservative Government's appalling standard of industrial relations. I believe that, because those children missed opportunities and had fewer qualifications, their opportunities in life were damaged.

As a parent in the 1990s, I again saw the damage caused by the initiatives introduced by Michael Forsyth and others who were determined to run down the basic principles of Scottish education and to provoke disharmony, discontent and division in the system. Such an approach was very damaging to schoolchildren the length and breadth of Scotland.

However, in this first decade of the 21st century, there has been investment in teachers and teacher support; investment in schools and equipment; and a determination to ensure that, in our policies, we improve standards, performance and results. Those improvements are starting to come through in every category.

I tell Miss Goldie that Scottish schools are unrecognisable from what they were when the Conservatives were in power. Everyone who works in them and everyone who sends their kids to them knows that. Everyone wants schools to improve even more, and we are determined to deliver that.

The escalating levels of antisocial behaviour in our schools; the conduct to which our teachers are subjected every day; and the alarming fact that many universities are using their resources to re-educate undergraduates who have supposedly attained certain educational standards under our examination system suggest that all is certainly not well in the world of education.

Audit Scotland's remit was only to review the cost and implementation of the McCrone agreement, not to examine the whole educational structure within which teachers must operate. Will the First Minister agree to devolve more power down to our schools, including power over salaries, to find out whether teachers or politicians are better at running them?

Yet again, I disagree with Annabel Goldie. Our own independent inspectorate of education has said:

"Scottish qualifications are held in high esteem internationally",

not just in Scotland. I do not want to demean in any way individuals who are at the moment leaving Scotland's schools to go to university, but I remind the member that if there are any issues with how they were taught reading, writing and arithmetic in primary school 10 years ago, it was a Conservative Government, not this devolved Government, that was in power and running the education system.

I believe that Scottish qualifications stand the test of international comparison—all of the evidence shows that. I also believe that, rather than tinkering further with the structure of education in Scotland, we must be determined to improve the curriculum, to improve further teachers' numbers, to raise standards in the classroom and to ensure that the increased results and achievements that we already have in primary schools, in the early years of secondary, in standard grade and in higher, are built upon. That is our priority and that is what we will concentrate on.

We have had long exchanges today, which means that we are tight for time. I will take one important constituency question.

The First Minister has referred to the E-coli outbreak, which is concentrated at one of the Careshare nurseries in my constituency. Although the cause of the outbreak is yet to be identified, it is concerning that four youngsters are already in Yorkhill hospital and two others are being monitored. Does the First Minister agree that establishments that provide care, education or recreation for vulnerable people, particularly the very young and the very old, must conform to the best possible practice and the very highest hygiene and cleanliness standards, and that any deficiencies highlighted in reports must be treated seriously and acted upon immediately?

Absolutely. As there has been some coverage of the report by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, it is probably important to clarify this. My understanding is that, as happens in such cases, a draft care commission report was circulated to the establishment and the establishment committed to making the improvements. When the final report of the care commission and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education was produced in January, the establishment put in place an action plan. However, clearly there must still be concerns about the outbreak of illness in the past week. We are determined first of all to ensure that the local agencies that are dealing with the outbreak have our full support to ensure that all individuals affected are identified and that any causes are dealt with. Subsequently, there will need to be investigations to ensure that lessons are learned and that any appropriate action is taken locally and nationally to avoid a reoccurrence, if that is at all possible.

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United Kingdom Cabinet (Reshuffle)

To ask the First Minister what effect the Scottish Executive considers that the Prime Minister's Cabinet reshuffle will have on Scotland. (S2F-2294)

I hope that my Liberal Democrat colleagues can give me some leeway here. I welcome the Prime Minister's reshuffle and hope that it is of great benefit to Scotland. At the same time, while we have important relationships with our Whitehall colleagues—and it is important that we ensure that those relationships work effectively—we must be determined to use the powers that we have in this Parliament effectively and to make a difference for the people of Scotland.

When Tony Blair reshuffled his Cabinet last week, after pleading with people not to write off nine years' work because of nine bad headlines, people scorned him. Rather than the answer that the First Minister gave to Nicola Sturgeon, is the truth not that Tony Blair's failure to help to tackle the grotesque inequalities between rich and poor in Scotland—which see men in Glasgow's east end die 30 years before people in Bearsden—his insistence on Thatcherite privatisation of public services and the decimation of the manufacturing industry in Scotland explain why he is out of touch with people?

Where do I start?

It is not really your responsibility.

The elections that took place last week took place south of the border and it is for others to comment on them. However, on the points in Colin Fox's question—I think that there was a point—I will say, first, that his statistics are, as ever, largely inaccurate and, secondly, that the damage that his party's policies would do to the economy of Scotland, to jobs in Scotland, to the health service in Scotland and to the other areas that he mentions, would far outweigh the damage that even the nationalists would do. The policies of the Scottish Socialist Party are wildly out of touch with the people of Scotland and wildly out of touch with our modern world. The SSP is an irrelevant party with policies that would be dangerous for our country and it will be rejected decisively by the people of Scotland next May.

It was not the Scottish Socialist Party that was booed off by health workers at its conference for wanting to close hospitals throughout Scotland, it was not the Scottish Socialist Party that was selling peerages to dodgy millionaires and it was not the Scottish Socialist Party that led 114 soldiers to their deaths in Iraq; it was the Labour Government. Is it not the case that Tony Blair is becoming as big a liability for Labour as Thatcher was for the Tories and that Labour MSPs see disaster looming if he continues in office?

We are almost out of time, First Minister. If you want to respond, then respond.

No!

I have made my point. The Scottish Socialist Party is an irrelevance and should remain so.

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Fostering

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Executive monitors the number of children in individual foster families and what plans it has to limit the number of children being placed with any one family. (S2F-2291)

I thank Pauline McNeill for asking a question on a serious issue of substance.

Social work statistics include data about looked-after children, including the total number of children in foster care, and local authorities assess all individual foster placements based on the best interests of the child. Ministers have instructed a major review of fostering policy with the intention of developing a new national strategy to improve the range and quality of options that are available to meet the needs of each child. The review will consider the issues that Pauline McNeill has raised, but it would be premature to indicate a likely outcome today.

The report "Hidden Harm—Next Steps: Supporting Children—Working with Parents" identifies the fact that many children live in substance-abusing households. We have a responsibility to identify appropriate support for those children, so does the First Minister agree that there is a role for fostering families in tackling the problem? If so, does he also recognise the increasing demands on foster carers, one in five of whom already looks after five children or more? Will he assure me that the review will be a priority and will consider the quality of the experience for the children? Does he agree that a comprehensive solution must also involve extended families and acknowledge grandparents' crucial role? Given that it is fostering week, will he join me in recognising the valuable contribution that foster carers and foster families make to the lives of Scotland's children?

I am delighted to welcome the important role that immediate relatives play in looking after vulnerable children in many different situations, including those in which at least one parent has become a drug addict. In particular, I pay tribute to grandparents.

We have recently allocated additional resources to local authorities in Scotland to provide improved foster care. All the local authorities have opportunities to review their local systems of allowances and to provide better financial support for relatives who are involved in care. Most grandparents are involved in care for the love of the children and, as a result, do not seek financial compensation, but many find it difficult to provide the level of care that is required. On Monday, at Brenda house in Edinburgh, Cathy Jamieson and I met three young mothers who had been drug addicts and were trying to stay drug free. They had all relied on grandparents to look after their children while they were going through rehabilitation. That situation exists for many individuals in many parts of Scotland. The more support that we can give grandparents, the better, and the review will certainly consider that.

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First-Time Home Buyers

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Executive is taking to help first-time home buyers. (S2F-2290)

The need to increase opportunities for first-time home buyers in urban and rural areas in Scotland is a priority that is recognised by our increasing commitment to the low-cost home ownership programme, by our changes to the planning system and to Scottish Water's priorities and by the innovative homestake scheme.

Is the First Minister aware that the average age of first-time buyers in Scotland is now 37, which is the highest in the United Kingdom? Does he accept that the crisis in affordable housing in Scotland is due to the lack of affordable housing not only to rent, but to purchase? Is he also aware that, because of a local combination of low wages and high property prices, young people in my constituency and elsewhere in rural Scotland are forced to leave their communities if they want to get on the property ladder? Does he accept that we need a radical package of measures from his Government to address that issue, otherwise young people will continue to have to leave their communities if they want to own their own home?

This is a vital issue for Scotland and we have increased support for the low-cost home ownership programme by 80 per cent. With our homestake programme, we have set out to support an innovative scheme for more than 1,000 new properties each year for the next three years. In the first six months, it has already gone beyond the target for the first year.

Through the affordable housing investment programme, we have agreed with Moray Council and local housing associations more than 200 new units in the area that Richard Lochhead now represents. We will continue to ensure that more housing is available, both for rent and for purchase, to more people at an affordable rate. We are determined to continue our efforts in that regard, and I welcome Richard Lochhead's support for that.

As we started First Minister's question time late, I will use my discretion to allow us to spill over a bit and take question 6.

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Universities (Funding)

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive considers the current funding settlement for Scottish universities to be sufficient. (S2F-2293)

The 2004 spending review settlement provided record levels of investment for higher education in Scotland. By 2008, the end of the current spending review period, the Scottish Executive will be investing in excess of £1 billion per year in higher education, which represents a 28 per cent real-terms increase since April 2003.

Does the First Minister agree that it was right for Scotland to reject the system of top-up fees that was introduced south of the border? Is he concerned that any move to remove the cap on top-up fees could lead to increased pressure on our universities? Will he agree that we must work with universities to ensure that students are not faced with having to meet any funding gap that could result?

I recognise the success that there has been in our Scottish universities over recent years. There has been outstanding success in science. Just today, games technology at the University of Abertay Dundee has been publicised, and wonderful work has been going on at the University of Edinburgh to create a fabulous park for the commercialisation of science and to use that to the economic benefit of Scotland as well as for academic results.

We need to continue to improve the system and to ensure that it has the finance and the skills to compete in the 21st century. The route that we have chosen is the right one for that and I am determined that we will continue to pursue it.

That concludes questions to the First Minister.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Today's First Minister's question time did not conform to the objectives or standards that we can identify in our standing orders. I wish an assurance from you that you will speak to the First Minister and the deputy leader of the Scottish National Party and point out to them that many of us sit here with a serious intention. If we want to pull the wings off flies or have a stairheid rammie, we will stay at home.

I do not accept your overall premise, although I accept that there are matters to be considered. I shall consider them.

Meeting suspended until 14:15.

On resuming—